Panoramic camera capable of acquiring a region of particular interest in a panoramic image

ABSTRACT

A panoramic camera includes a casing, at least two independent camera units fixed on the casing, a first image processor electrically connected to each image sensor, and a device to sense level of ambient light. The camera units acquire images captured by each of the camera units and can stitch the images together to form a panoramic image. A second image processor is electrically connected to the first image processor, the second image processor obtains the panoramic image from the first image processor and by training or deep learning can focus on and zoom into a region of particular interest (ROPI) in the panoramic image. The ROPI can be edited and clipped out and the clipped images can be synthesized to form close-up images of the ROPI.

The subject matter herein generally relates to cameras, in particularrelates to a panoramic camera capable of acquiring a region of interestin a panoramic image.

BACKGROUND

Surveillance cameras are deployed in transportation hubs such as largecommercial supermarkets, parking lots, railway stations, and airports,as well as at various points in the city, and are continuously workingfor 24 hours. The number of surveillance videos has exploded.Surveillance videos play an increasingly important role in practicalapplications such as intelligent security, traffic management, andcriminal investigations. Therefore, concise and information-richsurveillance videos are of great value for storage and viewing.

However, lengthy surveillance videos occupy a lot of space in storage,and browsing unnecessary information in the videos wastes labor andtime. Obtaining more compact and more information-intensive videos wouldimprove the work efficiency of monitoring personnel, save labor costs,and greatly reduce the storage and memory requirements. To a certainextent, it is more suitable for the explosive development of informationin modern society. Video condensing technology is a current focus ofacademic and industrial circles.

In the prior art, obtaining a region of particular interest from asurveillance video requires manual application, wasting labor and time.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Implementations of the present technology are described, by way ofembodiments, with reference to the attached figures.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a panoramic camera in accordance withone embodiment.

FIG. 2 is function block of the panoramic camera in FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of a method for controlling panoramic camera.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration,where appropriate, reference numerals have been repeated among thedifferent figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements. Inaddition, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide athorough understanding of the embodiments described herein. However, itwill be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art that theembodiments described herein can be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, methods, procedures, and components havenot been described in detail so as not to obscure the related relevantfeature being described. Also, the description is not to be consideredas limiting the scope of the embodiments described herein. The drawingsare not necessarily to scale and the proportions of certain portions maybe exaggerated to better illustrate details and features of the presentdisclosure.

Several definitions that apply throughout this disclosure will now bepresented.

The term “substantially” is defined to be essentially conforming to theparticular dimension, shape, or other feature that the term modifies,such that the component need not be exact. For example, “substantiallycylindrical” means that the object resembles a cylinder, but can haveone or more deviations from a true cylinder. The term “comprising,” whenutilized, means “including, but not necessarily limited to”; itspecifically indicates open-ended inclusion or membership in theso-described combination, group, series, and the like. The references “aplurality of” and “a number of” mean “at least two.”

FIG. 1 illustrates a camera (panoramic camera 100) according to a firstembodiment. The panoramic camera 100 is capable of acquiring a region ofparticular interest in a panoramic image. The panoramic camera 100includes a casing 10, at least two camera units 20 fixed on the casing10, a first image processor 30, a second image processor 40, a wirelesscommunication interface 50, a controller 60 inside the casing 10, abattery 70, a solar panel 80, an ambient light sensing device 90, and asupplementary light component 110 fixed on the casing 10.

The casing 10 is substantially square. A material of the casing 10 maybe a metal with high thermal conductivity, such as aluminum or copper,so as to improve heat dissipation. A heat sink (such as graphene) can beattached to the casing 10 to further improve the heat dissipation.

Each camera unit 20 includes a lens 21 and an image sensor 22 located ona light path of the lens 21, each lens 21 collects light of a scenewithin its shooting range. Each camera unit 20 can be independentlycontrolled by a mobile terminal for example. A field of view (FOV) ofeach lens 21 is different, this enables different shooting ranges, andthe panoramic camera 100 can cover a 360 degree or 720 degree FOV.

Each image sensor 22 is configured to receive light collected by acorresponding lens 21 and form an image. In this embodiment, each lens21 may be connected with a fish-eye lens to increase the FOV. The firstimage processor 30 is electrically connected to each camera unit 20.

In the embodiment, the first image processor 30 is electricallyconnected to each image sensor 22 comprised in the camera unit 20. Thefirst image processor 30 acquires images captured by each of the cameraunits 20 and can stitch the images together to form a single panoramicimage.

The second image processor 40 is electrically connected to the firstimage processor 30. The second image processor 40 obtains the panoramicimage from the first image processor 30 and can query a region in thepanoramic image, edit the region in the panoramic image, and synthesizethe clipped image to form a close-up image.

Referring to FIG. 3, in this embodiment, the second image processor 40includes a construction module 41, a feature recognition module 42, atraining module 43, an inputting module 44, a query module 45, anediting module 46, a synthesis module 47, and a storage module 48.

The constructing module 41 is configured to construct a sample image setof a region of particular interest (ROPI). The sample image set may be ahuman face, a feature of a vehicle, a part of a vehicle, or an animal, aweather condition, or the like. Some parts of a vehicle can be featureson the vehicle, for example, license plates, tires, and lights.

Among the multi-frame video pictures included in the panoramic image,some picture frames include a ROPI, and some picture frames do notinclude a ROPI.

The feature recognition module 42 is configured to identify within eachframe of the video picture a ROPI, and delete picture frames that do notinclude a ROPI.

The training module 43 is configured to train the feature recognitionmodule 42 through deep learning or machine learning according to thesample image set, so that the feature recognition module 42 canautonomously classify targets and identify a target object.

The input module 44 is configured to input the panoramic image into thefeature recognition module 42. The panoramic image includes multipleframes of video pictures.

The query module 45 is configured to detect a position of the ROPI in avideo picture of each frame by the feature recognition module 42 andmark the position of the ROPI in the picture of each frame.

The editing module 46 is configured to cut out the ROPI marked in thevideo picture of each frame.

The composition module 47 synthesizes the clipped multiple frames ofROPIs in chronological order into close-up images.

The storage module 48 is configured to store the close-up image and/orthe panoramic image. Preferably, it is used to store the close-upimages, which can save storage space compared to storing completepanoramic images. In this way, a user can quickly obtain a close-upimage of the ROPI in the panoramic image.

The wireless communication interface 50 is configured to receive aremote control instruction sent by for example a mobile terminal. Theremote control instruction includes at least one camera unit 20 to becontrolled and a type of operation to be performed by the camera unit20.

A remote control instruction may be send to the panoramic camera 100through a mobile terminal, to control the camera unit 20 generally andto perform a task. The mobile terminal may be a remote controller, asmart phone, a tablet computer, and so on. The types of operationinclude, but are not limited to, zoom in, zoom out, adjust focus, adjustaperture, and the like.

The panoramic camera 100 can be switched between a remote control modeand a manual mode. When the panoramic camera 100 is in a remote controlmode, each lens of the camera unit 20 can be independently controlled bya remote control instruction to perform an operation.

The controller 60 is electrically connected to the wirelesscommunication interface 50. The controller 60 is configured to analyzethe remote control instruction and control the corresponding camera unit20 to perform an operation according to an analysis. That is, a focallength of one camera unit 20 can be adjusted by pressing a key of amobile terminal, and sending the remote control instruction to adjustthe focal length of the camera unit 20.

The battery 70 is configured to provide power to the panoramic camera100 when the panoramic camera 100 is operating. More specifically, thebattery 70 may be a rechargeable battery. In the above embodiment, eachcamera unit 20 has a battery 70, or different camera units 20 can shareone battery 70. The panoramic camera 100 can further include a powerline from an external power supply.

When the panoramic camera 100 is used outdoors, the solar panel 80 canconvert absorbed light into electrical energy, and feed the electricalenergy to the battery 70.

The lens 21 can be switched between a normal mode and a night visionmode. Specifically, an infrared filter (not shown) is disposed on thelens 21. When the lens 21 is in the normal mode, the filter is opened toblock near and far infrared light from entering the image sensor 22,that is, the image sensor 22 should only sense visible light. Theinfrared filter stops working in night vision mode, so that infrared canenter the image sensor 22 and form an image.

The ambient light sensing device 90 is fixed on the casing 10; and theambient light sensing device 90 is configured to detect intensity ofambient light around the camera unit 20.

The panoramic camera 100 further includes a light supplementing assembly110 connected to the controller 60. The controller 60 can turn the lightsupplementing assembly 110 on or off according to a detection made bythe light sensing device 90. The light supplementing assembly 110 may bean LED or other light-emitting device.

The panoramic camera 100 can obtain a panoramic image, and since it is apanoramic image, it can track the trajectory or real-time situation ofthe target at all times without missing the whole or key parts of thetarget. An intelligent searching for a ROPI in the panoramic image canbe performed, so that a close-up image of a ROPI can be obtainedautomatically, avoiding the time-consuming and labor-intensiveshortcomings of manual search, editing, and composition. Efficiency isimproved.

The embodiments shown and described above are only examples. Therefore,many such details are neither shown nor described. Even though numerouscharacteristics and advantages of the present technology have been setforth in the foregoing description, together with details of thestructure and function of the present disclosure, the disclosure isillustrative only, and changes may be made in the detail, including inmatters of shape, size, and arrangement of the portions within theprinciples of the present disclosure, up to and including the fullextent established by the broad general meaning of the terms used in theclaims. It will therefore be appreciated that the embodiments describedabove may be modified within the scope of the claims.

1. A panoramic camera, comprising: a casing; at least two camera unitsfixed on the casing; a first image processor is electrically connectedto each image sensor and configured to acquire images captured by eachof the camera units and stitch the images to form a panoramic image; anda second image processor is electrically connected to the first imageprocessor, the second image processor is configured to obtain thepanoramic image from the first image processor and query a region ofinterest in the panoramic image, edit the region of interest in thepanoramic image, and synthesize the edited image to form a close-upimage; wherein the second image processor comprises: a constructionmodule configured to construct a sample image set of a region ofinterest; a feature recognition module configured to identify whethereach frame of the video picture contain a region of interest and deletepicture frames that do not include the region of interest; and atraining module configured to train the feature recognition modulethrough deep learning or machine learning according to the sample imageset; an input module for inputting the panoramic image into the featurerecognition module; a query module configured to detect a position ofthe region of interest in a video picture of each frame by the featurerecognition module and mark the position of the region of interest inthe picture of each frame. 2-5. (canceled)
 6. The panoramic camera ofclaim 1, wherein the second image processor further comprises an editingmodule configured to cut out the region of interest marked in the videopicture of each frame.
 7. The panoramic camera of claim 6, wherein thesecond image processor further comprises a composition modulesynthesizes the clipped multiple frames of the region of interest imagesin chronological order into the close-up images.
 8. The panoramic cameraof claim 7, wherein the second image processor further comprises astorage module configured to store the close-up image and/or thepanoramic image.
 9. The panoramic camera of claim 8, wherein each cameraunit is able to be independently controlled by mobile terminal.
 10. Thepanoramic camera of claim 9, wherein further comprises a wirelesscommunication interface configured to receive a remote controlinstruction sent by mobile terminal.
 11. The panoramic camera of claim10, further comprises a controller electrically connected to thewireless communication interface, the controller is configured toanalyze the remote control instruction and control the correspondingcamera unit to perform an operation according to the analysis result.12. The panoramic camera of claim 11, wherein the remote controlinstruction comprises at least camera unit to be controlled and a typeof operation performed by the camera unit, and the type of operations isselect from zoom in, zoom out, adjusting focus, and adjusting aperture.13. The panoramic camera of claim 11, further comprises an ambient lightsensing device fixed on the casing.
 14. The panoramic camera of claim13, further comprises a light supplementing assembly electricallyconnected with the ambient light sensing device and the controller. 15.The panoramic camera of claim 1, further comprises a solar panel and abattery electrically connected to the battery, wherein the solar panelis able to absorb sunlight and convert the absorbed sunlight intoelectrical energy, and then output the electrical energy to the battery.